Elementary or Not?

Have you read the 512 Ants on Sullivan Street by Carol Losi? This is very short, rhyming story which I use to model exponential growth with my 7th graders.  Yes, I use this grade 2/3 with middle schoolers.

Reading this corny (or at least middle schoolers think it is) children's book is an easy way to introduce the powers of 2 when it comes to ants at a picnic.  We read the story aloud with no breaks and no prior discussion.  Then ask why I may be asking them to read such a story in math class.  The reply is typically "because it talks about doubling."  We then take turns reading sections of the text as a student to models the number of ants which join the parade at each stage of the story.  Our natural transition is to create a table, look for patterns, graph the data, discuss our findings and make predictions as to what would happen if this trend were to continue.

We take this introductory lesson to the next level by utilizing Excel to create tables, write functions and to graph the data.  Adding extensions as to what would happen if the ants tripled or quadrupled is common at this point.  How might the data change if only 2 ants joined it at each stage?  Can students predict at which point the ants will be over 1,000?

Taking this discussion to real life is the best part.  We talk about when exponential growth may be a positive and when it may be a negative....a great tie into science, cell growth, and bacteria spreading.

This next stage is to take the focus from a negative (i.e. the spread of illness) to a positive.  How can WE use exponential growth to to make a positive change in the world?  This leads into a great introduction to a Pay It Forward movement where each student is just one individual who can complete a good deed to 2 (or more individuals) asking for nothing in return but to simply pay it forward to 2 others....spreading kindness:)

Students brainstorm ways to spread kindness exponentially and put it into action.  We blog during to hear about challenges they encounter, ways to finalize their ideas and hear about the progress.  Their final task is to create a final project summarizing their kind deed, the mathematics behind it (a table, graph, pattern, function, etc.), photos, and a reflection.

The movie Pay It Forward makes a strong connection for students.  However, I have a clean-films version which has been edited (beyond PG-13) for school.  You may want to preview the content prior to showing this movie to your students.

Taking on the Blogging Challenge

The start of a new year and I have yet again set the goal of blogging.  I am consistently following, reading, commenting and learning from others' blogs but have failed to be keep my commitment of blogging.  The goal is to make a schedulers time to blog....

Happily, I found a blogging challenge via Paula Naigle (@pinaugle) on Twitter.  Thank you!

In the trenches by Kelly Hines started a self initiated blogging challenge for folks.  The best part of this challenge is that she gives prompts for those who are newbies and/or have writers block....or is that now called bloggers block???

This is directly from Kelly Hines and will be my calendar to get started (again).

If you decide to take on Kelly's challenge then she has asked us to please share via Twitter, on her blog or as she says....somewhere.

Here we go again!

Math Autobiographies and Saving Paper

At the start of the year, I like to learn about the math backgrounds of my students.  In the past I would have students write their autobiographies (by hand or using the computer) and then give me a paper copy.  

Last, year I tried to be a bit more creative and gave students options of how they might want to create an autobiography.  Although the students were creative I feel as if it was a lot more work than was really needed for both the students and myself.  And it was a challenge to display some of the creative pieces because students had shared personal experiences.  As a result I had beautiful projects which I could not hang up.

This year I have reverted back to the typical format of the autobiography but in order to save paper students are uploading their work to my Dropbox using DROPitTOme.  This is free and very easy to use.  The only problem I have run into is that students have saved their documents using exactly the same file names.  This means this latest upload is saved and the previous work is "deleted."  Thank goodness Dropbox allows me to see and recover previous versions. If you are interested in using Dropbox or DROPitTOme with students make sure you ask them to save the document with their name within the file name. It will save you a great deal of work!

In the end I am getting exactly what I need and we are saving a great deal of paper in the process:)

Vistaprint for the Classroom

This summer I became addicted to VistaPrint.  First I bought a coupon for VistaPrint from LivingSocial.  I was sad to discover that I could not get the discounted values which VistaPrint offers when using my LivingSocial coupon.  But then I joined Vistaprint Ideas for Teachers on FaceBook and found out the there is a trick to getting the discounted prices and using the coupon in one transaction.  I then purchased a coupon on Groupon.

Here is the trick to the trade:
1. Go into VP through your Groupon link. 
2. Fill up your cart with goodies galore.
3. Enter in your Groupon code.
4. Go to your email and pick your best email offer from VP. 
5. Click on it and go back to your cart. It SHOULD combine the two offers. 


Here is what I ordered this summer:



Small Lawn Signs (without the metal stand):

 

Small Car Magnets:

 

Sad that I didn't catch the lowercase "is"

Address Labels:

Postcards:

 

Business Cards:

Small Rubber Stamp:

AND....I was able to choose two free items.  I think it can be a bit tricky to find the free items.  I actually had to do a search online for free VP items.  My free items included:


T-Shirts:

Pen:

Small Rubber Stamps:

Business Cards:

Flat Invitations:

I did use different email and mailing addressesto get multiple items....another trick.

First Day of Class

Our first "real" day of seventh grade math class is complete!

This year I began class with students watching the Pixar animation  "For the Birds."

Students were asked to watch the movie and then write about what they saw.  Students were also prompted to think of possible reasons as to why their math teacher would be showing this during our first math class. After writing quietly, I then asked students to share what they saw and possible reasons as to why I had show For the Birds.  Their responses were right on! 

Listening to one another, accepting one another's uniqueness, laughing with one another and not at one another, not making fun of others and realizing that if you laugh at somebody then sooner or later they may be laughing at your are all core ideas which they shared.

Managing the Classroom

As we all know some classes are more challenging than others.  Here are a few tools which may help you to manage your classes:

• ClassDojo (There is an app now too!) - Makes it easy to keep students alert and on-task. This teacher does a nice job explaining set-up and applicaiton.
• Classroom Carrots (Here is a short video for Classroom Carrots) - Classroom Carrots is a site that reminds me of a cross between Class Dojo and Class Badges. This is done by using their educational portal to create a class and add students. Once that is done a teacher can then modify their rewards/stickers and start adding these stickers to students. This is used to manage behavior as well as increase student engagement. Also, they have a nice iPad app for mobility.
• Use a Door Bell for brain breaks and a little math - Read how this teacher used a doorbell to incorporate a brain break in her class.
• GroupMaker  - GroupMaker is the best app for quickly creating diverse groups. Organize groups based on gender, performance level, or ethnicity. You can also just randomly mix everyone up into groups of 1-20 depending on your needs. GroupMaker is a tool to help teachers organize their classes into diverse heterogenous groups.
• Heads or Tails - Best coin flipping and tossing.  Use it anytime you need to make some choices:)
• How about a sound gauge?
• Teacher's Assistant - Teacher's Assistant Lite allows teachers to keep track of student actions, behavior, infractions, and achievements in the classroom. The lite version allows you to use the app with 5 students with up to 3 actions per student. Try before you buy!
• Pick Me! - This app makes it EASY and FUN to Randomly Pick Students!
• Do nothing for 2 minutes.
• You Can Handle Them All - Based on a best-selling book, You Can Handle Them All, this is an app for any educator or parent who’s struggling to manage a student’s or child’s inappropriate behavior!  You Can Handle Them All is a quick-action resource for managing 124 student behaviors at school and at home.
  Categorized by the 4 primary causes of student misbehavior, this app:
  • Clearly describes 124 different student behaviors you may encounter.
  • Identifies the primary cause of each behavior.
  • Offers a number of quick actions you can take to manage each student behavior.
  • Reveals the common mistakes teachers often make when trying to correct behaviors.
  • Cross references related behaviors. 
• Monitor the classroom noise level and create a visualization for students with the Calmness Counter. 
• Create musical cues for your class.
• How about some fun classroom timers?
• Music has been known to have a calming effect.  Although students may think this is corny at first...it works! A musical realization of the motion graphics of John Whitney as described in his book "digital harmony"
• Stick Pick  - Pick a student at random just by giving your device a shake or tapping the screen -- but that’s just the beginning. Stick Pick suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond during classroom discussions. If a student is consistently scoring near the top or bottom, simply change the level so students aren't bored or frustrated. Depending on students' levels of English proficiency, they might be asked simple yes-or-no questions or to elaborate in longer sentences.
• Random Name Generator Tool - Did anyone not answer yet? Who still has a popsicle stick? Are you kidding me? Bring your classroom management into the 21 century with the Random Name Generator Tool.
• The TooLoud! app is ideal for the teacher who needs to limit noise in the classroom environment.  It records decibels, displaying the volume levels in numbers.  Use it to let the class know when they cross the auditory line.  Hook your iPad up to the projector and manage the working noise level in class by letting the students see the feedback for themselves.  The data is also visualized in a live graph and in a sliding bar that indicates the rising levels of clamor and babble.  Watch out for the red zone...time to bring the level down!
• A traffic light flash resource to control the volume the children in your class.
• Happy Class - HappyClass automatically creates classroom seating arrangements based on your students’ needs and relationships.
• Challenge your class not to make the balls bounce with Boucy Balls.
• Dart Board name selecting tool or even a Random Name Selector can add some interest.

Have you tried one of the ideas or tools from above. Share your feedback.

What ideas, techniques or resources do you have for managing your classroom?

Girls and Math: Why Are We Still Having This Conversation?

A recent article To End the Gender Skill Gap In STEM, Add Competition To The Equation caught my attention and then made be ask, "Why are we still having this conversation?" Who says women can't do math and science?

Girls and math has been a topic of discussion for as long as I can remember.  Do you remember the outrage when Barbie claimed math was tough?

Did anybody see the off-Broadway play, Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen, which asked the question "Can a girl know Pi to 53 decimal places and still be popular?"  I personally did not see this play but do hope , for the sake of all women, that the answer was, "YES!"

NPR has regularly talked about encouraging American Girls to Embrace Math.  My preference?  Let's stop talking about it and take some action.

We have passed the holiday season but Tis The Season to Encourage Little Girls to Become Engineers. Lets stop talking about engineering girls for a man's world and take some action. As Danica McKellar so boldly writes, "Math Doesn't Suck."  And as Nell GreenfieldBoyce so proudly shared Girls' Math Skills Equal Boys. 

Kudos goes out to Diane Sawyer and Person of the Week: Sheryl Sandburg.  We need more women like Sandburg to take charge and change the future for women.